The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Part XIV)

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Transcript of The Pied Piper of Hamelin (Part XIV)

Language/Tone The tone of the poem is that of a storyteller, a child being told the story of 'The Pied Piper of Hamlin by the narrator. In stanza xiv, the storyteller is rounding off his story, speaking of legends of "...alien people who ascribe the outlandish ways..." The use of 'alien' and 'outlandish' makes the so called tribe of people who are assumed to be the children seem abnormal to society even though they are supposed to be living in their own utopia that seemingly does not fit into 'normal' life. The use of Transylvania as the place where the children retreated to adds to the mystery of the plot as Transylvania is seen as a a supernatural place. Characterisation The Big Question? Line 274 gives the time of the poem "twenty-second of July, Thirteen hundred and seventy-six" this shows when the event took place The Pied Piper of Hamelin Part XIV Voice In The Pied Piper of Hamelin, there are a variety of speakers. We can name three for definite. The Piper himself, and the villagers (townspeople). Also, there are the survivors of each time he performs his 'magic' - a rat, and a disabled child who survives long enough to tell us what they experienced. Time In part XIV there is only the voice of the narrator, who we can assume is from the village itself by the language he uses. It may be that he is simply present, or a traveler in the village, however the way Browning has written 'what happened here' implies that the persona is familiar with his surroundings, and is probably a villager.The way that the narrator speaks is also reminiscent of a story told around a fire, implying that it is a story that is now told to warn children, and that it is a familiar fear for him. (We assume he is a male) The characterization used in stanza xiv is used to describe the children of legend: "...a tribe of alien people..." This is evidence of the way people talk through fear of the unknown, both in the time of the poem and in modern day society. In stanza xiii, the narrator says: "...a wondrous portal..." This charcterises the mountain in a way that makes it seem magical, in keeping with the way the children are said to feel at the time: "...he led us...to a joyous land..." What is the point in the story? Setting In this stanza there are many settings and places mentioned. in the first line Hamelin, this reinforces the original setting to the audience and is in contrast to the end of the stanza.Next it talks of 'heavens gate' which shows the audience the Pied Piper thinks he has saved the children.Line 261 shows the vast size of the scale of the problem, and how far people would go to save their children, ' East, West, North and South,' this also puts Hamelin at the center of the poem The point of the story is to create a moral to influence the child being told the story to not tell lies as it will have a disastrous effect which in the story was the children being led away from the town, which may have been good for them, but for the people left in the town, it left them missing the children and constantly reminded of the mayor's decision to lie. This could have been an epidemic. rats carried the black death or plague, so there was a need to dispose of the rats. then it seems the children who had weaker immune systems fell ill. This could be linked to the pied piper who wore bright co lours and a lot of red, like a rash. There are then 2 theories of what happened next, either the towns people went on another crusade like a few decades before and killed the children to protect themselves. Alternatively the children were wiped out by the illness. In both events it ended in loss of life and a mass grave of the children. the Pied Piper helped them cross the river, purifying , and took them 'to heavans gate' a regular theme in all versions of the tale. One way that we know that like most stories, It has a true origin for a base is in 1300 there was a stained glass window with the tale on it.